Young Ned

"My Lord, I'm sorry for death of your brother."

"It's a shame, yes," Renly Baratheon answered with a reluctant smirk, an odd expression, Ned thought, for a man in mourning. "He wasn't much of a brother to me, really, nor I to him, but I appreciate the sentiment all the same."

"He was a good man," Beric replied, still resting upon his knees. "A dutiful one, until his dying day. Any word, on the Lady Shireen."

"Safe in the Keep," Renly answered, one eyebrow raised in thought. "You wish to ask whether I am your liege lord now, or she your liege lady, am I right, Lord Beric?"

"I suppose that's a matter for our new King to decide," Beric replied, giving away nothing of his own opinion.

Lord Renly, as far as they all knew, still the Castellan of Storm's End, had called all the Baratheon banners upon the news of Stannis's death in the riots of King's Landing, and they'd ridden with little rest from the marches since that day. Arriving at the Wendwater this morning, only several days' ride from the capital, Lord Renly had met them, and informed them the ground shattering news that the Queen's Council had decided to name Rhaegar king, inviting him to the capital and thus undoing with a single letter what they'd fought so hard to prevent four years before.

"Do you think she did it," Ned had asked, along the way. "Blown up the Sept?"

"What do you think?"

"No," Ned answered. "I remember her eyes. She had kind eyes. She showed kindness to her enemy. I don't think she could have ordered such an awful thing."

"You've got good instincts, Ned," Beric whispered, both readying themselves for the new wars to come. "I don't think so either."

So it had been the Queen's men who had betrayed her with the Sept, and now betrayed her very crown. The same ones, Beric had pondered out loud, in all likelihood. So quickly the tides turned. They'd put down a rebellion once. Would Renly Baratheon call them to rise now, as rebels in turn? Would they do so anyway, even if he didn't?

"Shireen Baratheon is a good woman, despite her father...despite her mother," Renly proclaimed thoughtfully. "She is the Lady of Storm's End...just as Sansa of House Stark remains your rightful Queen."

Ned looked up. This was a fact, yet he knew there was some hidden significance to Lord Renly's words. He looked to Beric, who seemed to nod in understanding.

"What about Rhaegar," Ned asked. It would be impudent for a child to interrupt a great lord like Renly, except they'd not forgotten that Edric of House Dayne was every much a great lord as the younger brother of Robert and Stannis Baratheon, especially now that he was to remain merely the Castellan of his niece's castle. "Are we to accept him as our King now?"

Again, the mystifying smile from the man. Rather than answer, he looked to the Lady Brienne, who had joined them in the Kingswood several days before, amidst a charred landscape, pockmarks of the awful fires which had terrorized the countryside for the last several years.

"Lady Brienne, I've known you since you were a child, and I trust your judgment. These fires, which you saw with your own eyes at the ruins of Summerhall...do you believe they are truly a judgment from the Gods to punish our fair Queen for some...girlish triflings?"

Dropping to her knees, the broad shouldered knight in all but name answered immediately. "We caught several bandits outside of Felwood. They admitted to setting the fires, but for the sake of pillage."

"One man admitted to being paid," Ned added. "We found him in the Rainwood, but an arrow got him in his neck before he could say anything further. Lord Beric and I gave chase, but they'd already disappeared under the tree cover."

"Seems suspicious, doesn't it," Renly asked, his intended answer obvious. "I haven't been back to the capital since the rebellion. I failed rather badly at all that, but I'd say that everything that's transpired in King's Landing, up until this sudden invitation by the Her Grace's Regency Council...that somehow, three men who retain the least loyalty to Her Grace are the only three who survive to make this proclamation mere weeks before her majority, that all seems quite suspicious too, doesn't it?"

None of this was news to them, yet the words had their effect, coming from someone so high as the former Master of Whispers.

"Will this be war then," Beric asked. "Do we march on the capital against Rhaegar?"

Renly sighed sadly. "I called you here because I trust you, Lord Beric. And Lady Brienne, your sword and your loyalty, your sense of duty, I've long admired. The others, the Bucklers, the Estermonts...I've less trust for. The Carons, the Morrigens, the Mertyns...well, I'm not entirely sure about them." The smirk upon the man's face disappeared. "I've word that Her Grace has agreed to the marriage, and the subsequent union of crowns between Houses Stark and Targaryen. So long as this union stands, Rhaegar is our King."

Beric nodded, but Ned had to ask, to be sure. "And if it doesn't?"

A warm smile from the older man. "Then we are loyal to our Queen, as you were, when you destroyed the armies of the invaders below the walls of King's Landing."

They were the words he wanted to hear, and Ned struck his sword into the dirt, imagining it to be Dawn. "Forever, I serve Queen Sansa of House Stark."

"As do we all," Renly said, observing Beric and Brienne nod their heads in agreement. "The Lady Shireen will accompany me back to Storm's End after her coronation. She must be loyal, you see, as she is young, and has none of the experience of her father in commanding men and armies. But you must understand, my good lords, and lady...though she must swear fealty to King Rhaegar before leaving the capital...the Lady Paramount of the Stormlands has no quarrel against those who serve Queen Sansa...and neither does her castle. Do you understand me?"

"We do," Beric agreed.

"I'll speak bluntly," Renly said. "Two men from the Reach and one minor lord from the Westerlands have decided to restore the same Targaryen Prince that more than half a continent fought tooth and nail to expel twenty years ago. The Queen is a young child with a noble heart, a generous spirit, and a forgiving nature...who is also a prisoner in her own castle, with all the men and women with the strongest ties to her mysteriously dead, one after another, except for Lord Baelish, a man with little lands nor bannermen alike...despite his position, his name carrying little power or weight across the realm. Does this sound like a recipe for a lasting peace, my dear friends?"

"It sounds like base betrayal and treachery," Brienne grunted through gritted teeth.

"Not by us," Renly said, looking at his feet hanging by his saddle, eyes downcast and solemn, before he continued. "I'd failed her, so utterly and completely. My failures got her father and brother killed, good men both. She ought to have hated me...yet, she cried, when she rightfully dismissed me from the Small Council. She still called me her uncle, when she bade me farewell from King's Landing."

Ned had never heard this tale, yet he believed it instantly, and he could easily envision the scene in his mind, from the sweet girl he'd met so briefly by the banks of the Blackwater.

"Most men would see such sentiments as weakness," Renly continued. "I don't believe so. I believe her mercy and her compassion are exactly the ideals that make Queen Sansa a Queen worth serving, a Queen worth fighting for. I called the few of you here, because I know you believe the same."

"Yer damn right we do," Thoros of Myr muttered, as sober as Ned had ever seen the man.

"War will return, I think. I hope it does. And if we know war is coming, we ought to prepare for it, am I right, Lord Beric?"

"Wise words, my lord."

"You know the marcher lords," Renly said, leaning forward upon his horse, his voice lowering to a whisper. "Gather those loyal to the true crown, and make them ready for the war. Lady Brienne, you and your father know the houses of the Rainwood and Kingswood...do the same there. Lord Edric...I've no question that the Martells are eager for treason again this time around, yet House Dayne's influence from the Torentine to Prince's Pass is not to be denied."

"Aye," Ned answered, hands still gripped firmly upon the hilt of his sword, knowing what he meant, that he may need to fight his own liege lords again, perhaps in Dorne this time, even below the walls of Starfall. "I understand."

"My position is more delicate, but I'll lend you what knowledge I can gather, though it is my duty to watch over the Lady Shireen, before all else." Though he was not a fighting man, Renly Baratheon raised his sword high in the air. "To Queen Sansa, of House Stark!"

"Long may she reign," they all chanted together.


Sansa

"Dragonstone has maybe five hundred or more men, sworn to me, I think. I can call them to sail, see if they can maybe meet with Uncle Edmure's men somewhere by the Trident."

The Queen looked sadly at her younger brother, the Prince of Dragonstone, less than seven moons away from his thirteenth name-day, and only slightly older than she had been on the day of her coronation. They'd been besieged then, and so they were again now, except after Pyke their castle had been filled with strong men who supported her and her family...not strangers, knowing too well her helpless state, who'd chosen to openly betray her. Though he'd grown tall, his muscles still had yet to fill his lanky frame, and Sansa wondered if Bran would ever grow into the great warrior her brother had always dreamed of becoming. But skills with swords regardless, Bran seemed much more mature than she'd been at the same age, yet Sansa did not want to burden him with even a small piece of what she'd been forced to endure in the intervening years.

"They won't make a difference," she shrugged helplessly. "The Tarlys have the city now. Lord Stannis is dead. Even if we wanted to make war...we stand no chance."

If she'd never gone out to face the High Sparrow, her mother would still be alive, as would Shireen's father. Though Arya's good friend mourned, she did not seem to blame Sansa, thankfully unaware of the fact that her father's death had been the consequence of her personal decision, rather than the overall Council's. But Sansa knew the truth. And she tried to tell herself that she was not rationalizing for her own mistake, when thinking over the events of the past few fortnights in her mind, and believing that the results may have nevertheless ended the same.

Her uncle Edmure had managed to rally the Blackwoods and a few other houses that worshiped the Old Gods. Some who kept to the Seven, such as the Brackens, had refused the call. Other, like the Pipers and the Mootons, did march, whether out of loyalty to their liege lord or Queen, Sansa didn't know. The Freys joined too, but only after obtaining a marriage of one of their ladies to her Uncle. Last she'd heard from Petyr, before they moved him to the Hand's tower and prevented the Queen from seeing even her own hand, the Riverlands contingent had just departed the Twins following her uncle's wedding, and Ser Balon doubted that they'd even arrived at the Crossroads just yet.

Which meant the Tarlys may have entered the city invited or uninvited, especially as determined as Lord Randyll was, it seemed, to have her marry Rhaegar. If they tried to force the city, then Stannis would have fought them...a dubious task however, considering he still had the city to pacify. And what of the Lannisters? Tyrion was in Dorne, and while all three of her supposedly loyal Regency Councilors had avoided her since sending out the invite to Rhaegar, she'd heard as well that Lancel's father had nearly been as eager in the betrayal as Randyll Tarly. A dark part of her mind thought that one day she would see Lancel again, and her fair knight, having not forgotten their love, would unseat his father and avenge his Queen. As to her more immediate present, Stannis could have died anyway, the Tarly's could have entered the city anyway, which meant the only tangible difference she'd made in attending the Bolton executions was getting their mother killed.

"Are you really going to agree to this," Jeyne asked, even more hysterical than her Queen since hearing the news. "He's a rapist, he raped your aunt, he'll be horrible to you!"

She hugged her friend, standing next to her, the two of them staring along with Bran and Ser Balon at the doors of the Throne Room, closed to its rightful occupant ever since the Tarly arrival.

"Ser Courtnay and Boros and all the other brothers may have forgotten their vows," Balon swore to her, hands ready to draw his sword, though whether to strike at air, or the metal gates, Sansa knew not. "I haven't. If Rhaegar wants you, he'll have to come through me, Tarly and all of them, I swear."

Sansa set her hand gently over her loyal Queensguard's wrist. Outside of her own family and Jeyne, he was the last person in the castle who'd remained ever steadfast to her, even the Lady Margaery, the supposedly great love of her brother's, had abandoned her, though Sansa assumed it had been her father's decision to send Margaery back to Highgarden.

"We can't fight this battle. It's not one we can win." Sansa did not forget her lessons for Petyr, on how to pick her battles, whether on an open fields, or in the secret hallways of the court.

"All we have to do is to keep Rhaegar from entering the city until your name day," Bran protested.

"With what men? All the banners by the city are sworn to the Regency Council, in my name, but to them in by law. Everything they've done is...lawful, in a way. Not even Ser Courtnay will fight for me, much less the Tarly's or the Lannisters. Should I call the City Watch to defy the Council then? Maybe some of the Baratheons? They're weakened too, all of them, from the riots, and we'll just be ordering more men to die for a losing cause."

"You're the Queen," Balon protested in his gruff voice. "The rightful Queen, aye, it may be a losing cause, but it's a cause worth dying for!"

"We can flee," Jeyne said. "Sail away somewhere, wait until you reach your name day, then return...you'll be able to dismiss your regents, just like Aegon the Broken King. Order them all killed, if you have to."

It was a pleasant thought, having Ser Balon take the heads of all who'd betrayed her. But Jeyne was not a Queen, and her words were merely childish fantasies, similar to the ones that Sansa had abandoned far too late.

"If I give King's Landing to Rhaegar willingly, the city and the Throne will be his forever."

"We can fight another war, call all the banners of the the northern three kingdoms, write Lord Renly," Bran insisted.

Sansa shook her head. "Another war? One that will be longer and bloodier than Rhaegar's Rebellion?" She swayed her eyes around the empty halls. "Swear to me you won't say a word of this to anyone?"

"I swear," they all replied dutifully, and then followed their Queen to a more secluded solar by the library.

"I've been giving Lord Petyr's words a lot of thought. He said to us Bran, remember, when we said goodbye to mother...this was no accident. All of this, the riots, mother's death...the destruction of the Sept, probably...it was all planned by Rhaegar, and whatever treacherous friends he has still in Westeros. The Tarlys, probably." She bit her lips. "The Tyrells too, I wouldn't doubt it."

"I knew it," Jeyne muttered angrily. "I knew she couldn't be trusted!" Jeyne had always been jealous of Margaery, yet Sansa trusted her anyway, she'd always craved the older girl's friendship and approval. Though, while perhaps the Rose of Highgarden had led Robb astray, Sansa figured she had little to do with this current conspiracy. It was always the men, men like Mace Tyrell or Kevan Lannister, who'd been determined to oppose her reign in one way or another, since the day she'd been crowned. And they'd all been ignorant of it, even mother and Uncle Petyr, until it'd been too late. They'd fought her in ever more secret battlefields, the countryside, the streets, the Septs, the hearts of the smallfolk...places that even Lord Petyr had been ignorant of.

"We can fight them," she whispered, grabbing Jeyne and Bran's wrists with her fingers. "Not with war, not with battles, but we fight them the same way they fought us...in secret, under their noses. I'll marry Rhaegar, I don't have a choice in that. But I'll get him to trust me, and then...we'll destroy them."

"How," Jeyne asked skeptically.

Sansa did not know exactly, if she were honest with herself. "We'll find a way. Maybe we'll figure out how to turn him away from his allies, like Mace Tyrell. Maybe Lancel can get Tyrion back from Sunspear, and together they can overthrow Lord Kevan." She looked her brother in the eye. "We'll get Arya back. Maybe she'll be the one to stick Rhaegar's throat with her Needle."

"Aye," Balon's eyes lit up. "I'd like to see that."

"But we have to be patient, you see. We're weak now. But we're stronger than Rhaegar was, when we defeated him in war. Father and mother are dead, Bran. Grandpapa's gone, Lord Arryn is dead, and Sweetrobin a child and Uncle Petyr a prisoner. So it'll be up to us, we'll find a way, we're the children of Eddard Stark, the Quiet Wolf, who overthrew an ancient dynasty! We're the children of Queen Catelyn, who helped her husband and then her daughter rule the Seven Kingdoms for almost twenty years! If we have any of our parents' blood in us, their wisdom, their strength, then we can't give up, but we must be smart about it...smarter than the Tarly's, smarter than Rhaegar, or his Spider."

As if on cue, her three remaining friends in the Keep bent their knees together in unison at the conclusion of her speech, her words, for once, entirely her own, though Sansa knew not where they came from even as she said them.

"We'll fight your enemies, Your Grace," Bran said, "openly, or in secret."

"Or we'll die trying," Ser Balon added ominously.


The gardens which had once been her sanctuary now seemed a prison. Her father had ordered the seeds of a weirwood brought from the North and planted in the Keep, across from the small Godswood generations of Targaryens had kept as a formality over the centuries. She'd never given much thought to the Gods of the north, they were mere trees, after all, though she'd always found old Godswood calming, and stopped every few moons to see the new weirwood sprout and grow from tiny sapling to a young tree. Would Rhaegar have it cut down, she wondered, before it matured, and thus profane the last tie she had in this castle to her father? What would her father think of her, all of Ned Stark's children prisoners in one castle or another? One thing she could ensure, at the very least, in cooperating with Rhaegar, was to hopefully obtain the release of her sister and Lord Tyrion from Sunspear. They'd heard nothing from Dorne for several moons, which meant nothing good, and Sansa could only hope that they were alive. She had a feeling they were. Arya was too strong to be killed, the Half Man too clever, both of them so much more skilled at surviving...at being, than herself.

"My Queen," a familiar and instantly welcome voice whispered at her.

"Uncle Petyr!"

Instantly she ran from whence the sound emerged, and found her Hand hidden behind a broad and ancient oak tree. She leaped into his arms, and clutched him like he was the only family she had left...which he was, in a way.

"Where...how did you escape the Hand's Tower?"

"I still have some resources available to me, dear girl." Somewhere, the nightingale chirped under a full moon, and Petyr looked and pointed his hand towards a distant wall. "Hurry, Your Grace, we have little time."

"What do you mean?"

His eyes were frantic, his face as gaunt as she'd ever seen him, and Sansa wondered just how well fed he'd been by her treasonous regents, who'd taken captive for themselves a Queen, her surviving royal family, and her only remaining loyal councilor.

"The cove, beneath the tunnels..."

Sansa understood immediately. "You found a ship?"

"It's waiting," Petyr whispered stealthily. "I wish I could have reached you sooner, but it took time, for me to ready everything. We have no time now, Rhaegar is in the very city, perhaps he's even entered the castle." He grabbed her by both shoulders. "We must run, before it's too late."

"No," she replied immediately, realizing from his reaction that Uncle Petyr did not understand what she'd determined on her own this last fortnight, while he'd been all but enchained and kept away from her.

"No? I understand, your brothers. I wish we can find them, bring them with us, but it'll alert the guards. They're all loyal to the Tarly's now, you must know this, then Rhaegar once he's crowned..."

"Uncle Petyr," she begged him, grabbing frantically his arms in her hands, "you don't understand. I must stay, I must do my duty, I must marry...Rhaegar."

"Surely you don't mean...," Petyr stuttered, looking the confused for once. "He's an awful man, my dear Sansa. You can't marry him. Even if those rumors of the High Septon's diary are true...he's a cripple, he's conspired to murder your family..."

Without thinking, the Queen leaned her head towards her Hand until her face met his, and took his lips into her own. It felt wrong. She had to tilt her head down to kiss the man. Petyr had loved her mother, not her foolish daughter. But they said she resembled her mother, when Catelyn Tully had been a girl her age. And though it continued to feel so wrong...Sansa felt like she had no choice, she needed him, and she knew what men like him wanted...all men, whether they pretended to or not, save the ones like Loras.

For once, her actions left her Hand breathless, speechless. Taking the lead, pressing her advantage while she still maintained it, Sansa took his hand in hers, his skin feeling oddly dry and cold to the touch.

"Stay here with me, unc...Lord Petyr. I need you here, I need my Hand. I must do my duty, and I can't do it without you here, helping me..."

"I live to serve you, my Queen, until my dying day. I'll take this country back for you, win for you your Throne again, I promise you. But here is not the not the place, Your Grace. Your friends, your people, are all in the North, in the Riverlands, in the Vale. We'll call them together, we'll reform, we'll march, we'll sever our alliances with those unworthy of you, and find new allies, loyal ones, whose houses we will raise and reward for their loyalty. Together, we'll all make war against the enemy..."

"You don't understand," Sansa pleaded again, repeating herself. "That's exactly what I aim to do. But here, in King's Landing." Her voice lowered to a whisper. "Do you think I've forgotten my enemies, of all they've done to me, to my family? But I am a Queen, and a Queen does not flee, she does not run." Her voice rose again. "A Queen serves her justice, however she may, and I will have my justice, Lord Baelish, on all who've betrayed me..."

"You can start with him."

The soft voice startled them both. So engrossed had they been in their argument, they'd neither seen nor heard the approach of a portly, bald man, adorned in the finest golden silks of the east.

"You...," Sansa said, her thin shoulders shivering at the sight of the new arrivals, "you must be Lord Varys."

"It's my pleasure to finally meet you, Your Grace." He had the temerity to actually bow to her. "And I'm afraid you're right, I have worked rather hard to undermine your reign, though I assure you, sweet girl, it's of no personal dislike for you, it's merely my duty, for the King that I serve."

"You," Sansa snarled, her fists balled up in fury. Behind this man they called the Spider, she saw not Ser Balon, but Courtnay Penrose and Boros Blount, who eyed her warily, and she knew she'd find no help with these two formerly loyal swords once sworn to her. There was also another man, older, grey strands streaking through his dark hair, with the complexion of a Dornishman and behind him, a portly man with red hair, the sword in his belt Sansa instantly recognized as having belonged to her father. "You murdered my father, you murdered my brother."

"I had help," Varys replied unemotionally. He pointed a carefully trimmed finger at the man standing behind her. "Lord Baelish assisted me every step of the way, from concealing from the Small Council the changed loyalties of those who raised their banners for King Rhaegar against Eddard Stark at Pyke, to manipulating your regime and leaving it vulnerable, marring its legacy so permanently with that hideous attack on the Great Sept...to inviting the Tarly's into the city, knowing full well they'd betrayed you in the last war, and intended to do so again..."

"Lies," Petyr screamed. At first he looked frozen, before his mouth opened and closed in a panicked frenzy. "All lies, Your Grace, the Spider is your enemy, he's always been your enemy..."

"I have, but not the only one, and not your most egregious..."

"He's an eunuch, he's been deformed, he served the Mad King, you can't trust a man like him..."

"Lord Petyr," Sansa said, unsure of whether she was going to defend him, which her instincts screamed for her to do...or whether she ought ask him increasingly pressing questions, questions raised by a small voice which gnawed steadily in the back of her head, a morbid curiosity which had abruptly been awakened by the Spider's accusation. "You can't...you couldn't have betrayed me, could you?"

"I didn't, my Queen, I swear to you..."

"You loved my mother..." In the corner of her eye, she saw that the Dornishman had been pushing a wheelchair occupied by a thin and hunched old man, the color of his silver hair still discernible under the light of a full moon.

"I did, and I love you, Your Grace, as Catelyn's daughter, I'd never betray you..."

"Take him to the Black Cells," the man whom they'd decided she would marry proclaimed in a deep and admittedly regal voice.

"No, you can't! He...we must..."

She needed to know the truth now! If Petyr was innocent, and they took him into the dungeons, and did horrid things to him...and yet...

It was Ser Courtnay himself who grabbed roughly the collar of her Hand's robes, his neck lurching violently as old knight nearly dragged him away from her and towards the castle, Petyr screaming his innocence until his voice disappeared behind the walls of the Red Keep.

Which left her to face the usurper who called himself a King. Rhaegar Targaryen. The enemy, who'd been their enemy for longer than she'd herself been alive. A man older than her father, whom she was to marry. A pathetic looking creature, a cripple, who barely looked a king from the neck up only. He appeared so weak, and Sansa's heart raged inside her chest, telling her that he was vulnerable, his guards and spiders be damned, that she could wrap her hands around his thin neck, and choke him to death, finishing the job that her father and Robert couldn't at the Trident.

Calm, Sansa, calm. A tantrum now will get you nowhere. Even if you kill Rhaegar now, your enemies still hold the city. Arya is still captive in Dorne, your brothers captive here to the Tarly's. You must behave, you must act the good Queen, the obedient girl.

The Gods knew how long they stood there at an impasse, staring at each other, neither one of them speaking. Finally, it was the great enemy who broke the silence.

"Ser Lewyn, please escort Queen Sansa to her chambers."

So Queen Sansa, the First of Her Name, the protector of her realm, did what she was told, leading the stranger sullenly through the halls of her home, which now belonged to another.


The Queen woke, and felt like she hadn't slept at all. First she thought of her uncle Petyr, and hoped that he was innocent of everything they accused him of, and prayed that they did not treat him too badly in the dungeons. Then she thought to pray to her father, and her mother, to ask them to watch over her, and Bran, and Arya, and Rickon. She would pray to the Mother, the Warrior for strength, except something in her heart rebelled at the thought of praying to the Gods who had let her down, who had forsaken her to the worst of fates. She thought about praying to the Old Gods, except she did not know just how to pray to them, or whom she was to even pray to. Yet, perhaps they were the ones who'd been true, and this was her punishment, for abandoning the Gods of her father, in favor of the Gods of her mother.

Those who kept to the Old Gods stayed true to me, even now. Those who keep to the Seven betrayed me.

It wasn't Jeyne who brought her her breakfast, but the Dornishman, whom she learned was Lewyn Martell, the Great Uncle of that nice boy Trystane. What would happen to him now, she wondered. Would her uncle have to execute that bright young man, who'd been as innocent as any who'd gone to war for the sake of a distant stranger?

He brought with him Rhaegar, and Sansa took the tray of food, saw that they'd not known to bring her lemoncakes, so instead she grabbed a piece of the plain bread and chewed it crossly, taking in a few sips of the milk between every bite, and refusing to meet the eyes of the cripple and the lackey who'd accompanied him.

"I know you hate me."

The bread was dry, and tasted like sand in her mouth.

"You probably don't believe it, but I loved your aunt Lyanna. More than anyone, more than I could have thought possible."

There was an orange in her tray. She took it, and stabbed it with her fingernails, peeling it sloppily, the sticky juice spilling onto her dress and her bed sheets.

"She loved me. I loved her. I married her, out of love. She bore me a child, out of love. Yet, even had I felt nothing for her, I would have done it all the same. Because it was my duty."

She could stand his hypocrisy no longer.

"Your duty was to your wife Elia Martell, who died after you'd abandoned her. Your duty was to your children, who were massacred when you abandoned them!"

She chided him, as if she were a Queen, and he an impertinent vassal. As a mother would a truculent child, but it made no effect upon the man, whose face seemed carved out of the ugliest stones.

"I miss them every day, sweet Rhaenys, the loveliest child I've ever laid my eyes upon. And Egg...the man he would be today. I loved Elia too. Even when I met Lyanna, that wonderful day in Harrenhal..."

The day all the smiles died.

Sansa turned her eyes to Ser Lewyn. "My good Ser, how can you bear to serve a man so...full of...shit?"

"The Dragon must have three heads."

"What?"

The Dornishman did not say a word, not at her condemnation, nor his master's cryptic message.

"My dear Elia, she did for me all she could...yet the maesters said she could no longer bear children, that birthing the elder Aegon had nearly killed her." Rhaegar sighed, and had the gall to be sad, after all the accursed havoc he'd wrecked on her family and so many other families. "Sometimes I rue the day I met that High Priestess from Volantis. But her truth is my burden, my destiny..."

"What are you talking about?"

For a moment, his purple eyes seemed caught in his ancient past, in a different world. Then, they returned to meet her in her room.

"It's no matter, one day you'll understand." He nodded to Ser Lewyn, who gripped the handles of his chair, ready to thankfully take him out of her sight. But before they left, he turned to her one last time. "You're many years younger than me. I'd expect you to outlive me, I'd wish it, in fact. I'm no fool, I don't expect you to ever care for me, much less love me, after all that's transpired in the last twenty years, between your family and mine. But I do expect you to do your duty. You will bear me two children, no more, no less. Then, you may do as you wish. Go North to Winterfell, or Riverrun...take your own lovers, even, it doesn't matter. All that matters, is that the Dragon must have three heads, that we are prepared to fight the greatest war to come."

With that, they left, and had her heart not burned with the desire for revenge, her hatred for this evil man growing stronger with every minute she was firced to cast her eyes upon him, Sansa would have wished for poison in her food before it got any worse.


Daenerys

Her fingers were trembling by the time she finished reading the scroll. Daario, immersed in his bath, open to the summer breeze coming off the waves like everything in these fairest of isles, did not notice.

"I have to go back."

"Huh," he asked, choking on a glass of wine. He'd returned from his latest wars with yet another scar upon the back of his shoulder. She liked it actually, the scars looked good on him, never mind the pain he must suffer each time his body received another trophy for her fingers to toy with.

"My brother..."

"The twit? Or the old one?"

She'd suspected it once she heard about the Sept. Yet her mind blocked it out, and the Princess of nowhere continued burying her head in the wondrous sands of the Summer Isles, and prayed that the ensuing news she'd expected to come afterwards would never arrive. But much as she could run from the world, the world would not run for her sake.

"Rhaegar will be crowned in King's Landing. He will take his seat on the Iron Throne."

"So?"

Raising his body from the water to meet her eyes, Daenerys saw first confusion, then a growing unease and concern fill the eyes of her lover. Daario wouldn't ever truly understand. Or care. Which was why she...enjoyed him. Which was why she had to leave him now. He'd be upset. He'd curse, and spit, and rage, and then they'd make love, more passionately than any time before or after, she imagined.

But then, he'd let her leave, of that Daenerys had no doubt. And just how did she feel about that, about leaving the man who'd been her lover for the last year? Sadness, for sure. Would she forget her sadness though, once she set sail for the lands her ancestors once ruled, which the blood of the dragon, her blood, now ruled again?

"I must go to him. It's my duty." A concept unknown to a mercenary, Daenerys thought rather ungenerously.

It's my curse.


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Notes & Responses: Yup, Robb def screwed up...though some accounts seem to suggest that perhaps it was more Arianne taking advantage of the situation, rather than Robb going after her. After all, Trystane remembered Robb being rather disinterested in his sister until their alleged affair.

As for Joffrey, agreed, I don't see any reason for him to resemble his canon "counterpart"...the name is likely a coincidence, considering Joffrey Dayne was a famed warrior in Dornish lore.